Category Archives: ThingOut!

Our big summer event is tomorrow, Saturday, August 20th and here’s your clip and save cheat sheet. We hope to see you there! Note: One small change to the talks, at least one of them will be done suspended in air.

Details

Where: Fremont Outdoor Movies at N 35th and Phinney AveWhen: ThingOut starts at ~4:30pm. Ignite doors open at 7pm. Speakers are on at 8pm (or when the sun permits)Cost: $5.00Who can come?: All Ages ShowWhat to bring: blanket/sweater and a folding chair. Food and drink if you so desire (no alcohol, please).More tips here

ThingOut Projects

Ignite Speakers (actual order TBD)

George Dyson – Alan Turing: The first 100 years
Alan Mathison Turing (1912-1954), conceived one hundred years ago, conceived the Universal Turing Machine in 1936: the common denominator that brings science and tech together.

Scott Berkun (berkun) Teaching Seattle How To Drive From merging on I-5 to the snowpocalypse, we have proven, year after year, that our driving skills as a city are wanting. We are surprised by rain, confused by four way stops and baffled at how to turn two lanes into one. Here is a fun but ranty plan for teaching Seattle how to drive right.

Glenn Fleishman (glennf) Letterpress Revival Letterpress printing was a dying art in the 1980s and nearly dead in the 1990s. Technology has revived it. You can now design on a computer, print out a plastic plate, and use 500-year-old technology that reconnects you to the mess and smell of ink, paper, binding, and industrial-age machines. Letterpress is messy, each print is unique, and it’s the antidote and complement to the perfection-with-abstraction of the Web, ebooks, and the rest. People crave real connection that the screen doesn’t provide. Letterpress puts you right up to the metal and pushes.

Jason Quick The Juggling Act of Life As a professional one-armed juggler and inspirational speaker, I strive to make every show about an important aspect of being human in relationship with other humans. I am a juggling geek, a relationship geek, and a circus freak who loves to juxtapose the tragic with the comic in order to bring the audience to a new balance within the dialectics that define our lives: comfort and pain, self and community, task and maintenance, love and fear…I will make of these five minutes something you will never forget.

Bennett Haselton Circumventing Internet censorship around the world My full-time job is working on software to help people in get around Internet censorship in countries like China and Iran, where the government filters what people can access on the Web. I can talk about the history of methods used by repressive government to censor the Web, and the parallel history of the tools for users to defeat that censorship. I will address some of the misconceptions that people have about the nature of circumvention software and the battle between the censors and the circumventors. And finally I will pose some of the (as-yet-unsolved) problems faced by the developers of circumvention software — problems that perhaps the geeks in the audience would enjoy taking home and thinking over.

Amber Straub (shadalicious) Unparenting – tips from a geeky mom.
Now that many of my geek friends are having children (I had mine in my early twenties, somewhat “early”) I want to share some shortcuts and musings that my partner and I have discovered on the way.

I will talk about some parenting rules that have been passed down that can reevaluated and rethought. Are bedtimes really necessary? Our daughter has never had an enforced bedtime, and yet she arrives to school on time every day. It’s ok to rethink and reevaluate how we raise children; it’s ok to try new things.

I will present some signs of being a crazy helicopter parent (not a good thing). Kids *can* be left alone. Kids *can* fly unaccompanied. Kids *can* walk to school alone.

I will point out how we are fostering curiosity and creativity, and how we are teaching personal responsibility, common sense, and early independence. How do we deal with consequences for actions, present rewards and handle necessary chores.

I will show some ways that she gets the attention and care that she does need and want, and how she is thriving with the freedoms afforded to her.

And for those who don’t have kids, I will ensure that the talk applies to those who have kids in their lives. Kids want to be related to as peers, not as “little snotty things that talk”.

Molly Nixon (thebeastieswee) mouse-o-nomics
Almost all of the medical advances we enjoy today were first tested in mice. Most what we know about human physiology was first studied in mice. However, the general public’s understanding of lab mice is usually limited to a few characteristics – they’re white, and they’re probably trying to take over the world.

In truth, all mice are not created equal (many of them aren’t even white!). Over the past century an entire industry has developed that is devoted entirely to the creation and production of lab mice. My talk will cover the factors that make some mice more useful than others, and the mouse-industrial complex that exists to meet the needs of modern science.

Beverly Sobelman (bev_sobelman) How to Run Away and Join the Circus
Mid-life career changes are all the rage these days. I went from software engineer to circus artist OVERNIGHT! Except.. I didn’t. I took a bunch of steps that happened to lead away from software and into a career as an aerialist. This talk will walk you through the steps that I took, in hopes that my story might inspire a few others to try something new and different – whether it leads to a new career or simply a great story to tell your grandkids.

Shawn Murphy (shawnmur) Naked Safety or How To Secure a Parade With Simple Psychology Large events like parades, conventions, and conferences often require large private security forces to maintain order and security. In a post 9/11 world, we’re told that this is required for our safety. It’s possible to control large crowds, effectively and safely, by applying modern psychology instead of barricades.

The Fremont Solstice Parade draws tens of thousands of spectators, but the parade is secured with fewer than 25, unpaid, volunteers with no security background and less than 20 minutes of training.

Security is often a boring subject, but keeping the Fremont Solstice Parade secure, safe, and (barely) a good show are the essence of hacking and good geekery — it’s also surprisingly funny.

Gwen Rowe hacking parents and other authority figures At the age of 9, Gwen is ready to share her favorite ways to beguile parents and others in charge. It is much easier to convince grandparents to do what you want. A simple please with a cute look goes a long ways But the real big challenge comes in when you need to convince parents or other adults not already enamored with you to do what you want. This talk is full of techniques explained by a kid that can be used to charm and convince nearly anyone.

Techniques including:

it was your idea,

its educational, I will learn from it

one for you, one for me

I will take care of it

oops (aka forgiveness v. permission)

quoting

the power of reasons – because I said so is not a reason

Robots!

Pascal Schuback (schuback) Tech; Disasters and YOU! (Geek approved road trip!) Crowd sourcing has always been around but with the current technologies, its capabilities have grown tremendously. This presentation will focus on the use of these tools in an environment vastly growing by the number catastrophic events around the world. The month of September is National Preparedness Month and with that CrisisCommons, a volunteer technical community that connects people and organizations who use open data and technology to innovate crisis management and global development, will be going on a road trip. (ROAD TRIP!!!)

Catherine Carr (mamatweeta) You Are Not Your SAT Score: A Crash Course in Multiple Intelligence Theory As the head of Cranium’s editorial department for 8+ years, I got hooked on Dr. Howard Gardner’s multiple intelligence theory, and I still find it to be a uniquely powerful tool for inspiration and general perspective-broadening. And in the current educational climate, when just about everything revolves around reading and math scores, I also think it’s incredibly important for the kids (and grown-ups!) in the crowd to hear these messages:

There are lots of ways (beyond just “reading” and “math”) to be smart!

We’re naturally inclined toward some of the intelligences, but we can improve and develop in any of them.

If something seems tedious or difficult to you, you can use the multiple intelligences to change your perspective.

Amanda Shumack (amandahoops) What is all the Hoopla? We’re talking Hoop Dancing – a style of Advanced Hula Hooping that your parents NEVER did!

Amanda (aka Sirin) will talk of the hooping sub-culture and how this modern take on an old fitness craze has taken a very new and different look. It’s become such an addiction to some that they’ve built careers out of hooping, branched off the sub-culture into sub-sub-cultures such as fire hooping, hoop yoga, hoop aerobics and hoop dancing.

These silly circular kids toys are inspiration to people who are looking to get fit, have fun and it CANNOT be done without a smile!

Amanda will also do some LED hooping (yes, this hoop has LIGHTS, people!) and give all the details to anyone who is looking for more info on getting started or who just wants to see what crazy folks are coming up with to spend your free time.

WARNING: Hoop Addictions have started with less…

Jen Matson (nstop) Field Guide to Record Collectors While everyone (of a certain age) remembers the first record they bought as a kid, only a small number of us end up loving the spinning slab of vinyl as much as the music itself.

Drawing on my own experience both as a longtime music geek and onetime used record store clerk, I’d like to present a High Fidelity-style Top Five List covering the most common habits and characteristics of that odd breed known as the record collector. Through a few profiles of collectors I have known and loved, I’ll cover such mysteries as:

– Why people own multiple copies of what appear to be the same record
– What is the proper record fair etiquette
– The sanctity of the first pressing

Even the most physical-format-shunning music fan should come away from my talk with a newfound understanding of (if not appreciation for) why we vinyl enthusiasts continue to lug our heavy boxes and crates of LPs and 45s around with us from place to place.

Deepak Singh (mndoci) #arseniclife In a world of Twitter and blogs, scientific peer review takes on a new meaning. From press releases, to TV appearances, to controversy in the blogosphere, this talk will dive into the history of one of the more interesting hashtags that Twitter has seen. The #arseniclife controversy portends the future of peer review, and it continues to be great sideline viewing.

Josh and I are both very excited to be organizing ThingOut, which is the pre-Ignite entertainment tomorrow. We’ll open the doors for the DIY festival around 4:30. AND, if you’ve got something you want to show off, feel free to bring it down.

Here are some of the groups and projects coming tomorrow that I’m most looking forward to.